


Laughing Woman In Oils

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, F/M, Jealousy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-02
Updated: 2011-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-17 11:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All's fair in love and war. Evan asked; John didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughing Woman In Oils

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a V-Day prompt challenge in 2007.

The silence on the other side of the room is louder than an explosion.

Evan turns to find Sheppard paused in the act of flipping through the paintings he’s piled in the corner.

 _Oh, shit_.

It could be any portrait, any scene, any subject that the colonel’s looking at. It could be, but it isn’t.

Evan’s first instinct is to cross the room and seize it back from the other man. Instead, he waits for the other man to speak - because this isn’t something Sheppard’s going to let pass by.

But it’s a long moment before the other man speaks, lifting the painting up so the light falls over it more clearly, the warm tans and golds warming the room as surely as the subject’s affection warmed the two men looking at her painting.

“Did you paint it from life?” It’s a casual question, but dark currents lurk beneath.

“Yes.”

He’s sorry to do this to a man he respects; but all’s fair in love and war. Evan asked, Sheppard didn’t; Teyla said yes.

“It’s beautiful.” Sheppard turns enough that Evan can catch the line of cheekbone and brow, an oddly arrested pose for a man who’s rarely still.

 **_She_ ** _was beautiful._

It was painted in one sitting - a two hour session when there were no interruptions, no duties, no emergencies over their earpieces. He lost himself in the painting, discussing…something with her. He’s still not sure what. But she was smiling through most of it, so it can’t have been that bad.

Teyla laughs out of the painting, looking over her shoulder at the viewer, the sheets of the bed in disarray around her. And the broad, satisfied smile on her lips leaves no doubt as to what Evan did to make her smile like that.

He made her laugh again, later. She welcomed him back into the bed, paint-stained fingertips and all.

But he won’t tell the other man that.

Just like he won’t offer Sheppard the painting, and Sheppard won’t ask for it.

There are always boundaries between professional men, however personal the subject.


End file.
